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Watandost in Urdu, Turkish and Farsi means "friend of the nation or country". The blog contains news and views about Pakistan and broader South West Asia that are insightful but are often not part of the headlines. It also covers major debates in Muslim societies across the world.

Osama Bin Laden Vs. Salman Rushdie

ISLAMABAD – A group of hardline Pakistani Muslim clerics has bestowed a religious title on Osama bin Laden in response to a British knighthood for the author Salman Rushdie.

Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses outraged many Muslims around the world, was awarded a knighthood last week for services to literature in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours list.

Muslims say the novel, published in 1988, blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Qu'ran and events in early Muslim history.

Pakistan and Iran have protested against the honour and small demonstrations have been held in various parts of Pakistan and in Malaysia.

A group of clerics, the Pakistan Ulema Council, has given bin Laden the title "Saifullah", or sword of Allah, in response to the honour for Rushdie, the council's chairman said on Thursday.

"If a blasphemer can be given the title 'Sir' by the West despite the fact he's hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah," the chairman, Tahir Ashrafi, told Reuters.

A Mujahid is a Muslim holy warrior. Bin Laden was one of many Arabs who helped Afghan guerrillas battle Soviet invaders in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

DISMISSAL CALL

In a related development, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said Pakistan's minister of religious affairs should be dismissed for suggesting suicide bombs were a justified response to Rushdie's knighthood.

On Monday, Pakistan's parliament adopted a resolution condemning the knighthood and said Britain should withdraw it.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq told the assembly insults to Islam were at the root of terrorism, and added that if someone committed a suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act was justified.

He later said he did not mean such attacks would be justified but was merely saying militants could use the knighthood as a justification.

But Bhutto said Haq had justified suicide attacks on a British citizen.

"The minister... son of a previous military dictator who had patronised extremist groups, had done a great disservice both to the image of Islam and the standing of Pakistan by calling for the murder of foreign citizens," Bhutto said in a statement.

Haq is the son of military president Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, whose policies of Islamisation in the 1980s are often blamed for sowing the seeds of militancy.

Benazir, who has lived in self-imposed exile for nearly a decade and faces corruption accusations at home and abroad, called on the government to dismiss Haq, although adding that the sentiments of most Muslims had been outraged by the knighthood.

Britain said it was deeply concerned about Haq's comments and nothing could justify suicide bombings. Britain has also defended the knighthood for Rushdie.

The speaker of the National Assembly expunged Haq's comments from the record, citing the national interest.

Haq told reporters he had been invited to visit Britain to help develop clerics' communication skills but he would only go if Britain apologised for Rushdie's knighthood.

Also on Thursday, the speaker of the Punjab provincial assembly said blasphemers should be killed while Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of Pakistan's ruling party, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was "personally and mentally against Islam".

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Comments

Good one, of course the very peaceful 'Muslims' are justified for destroying the whole world over this. What? The Queen can't Knight someone she likes? She can't knight someone that other people don't like?

But I'm sure Sir Rushdie has mixed emotions on this; the Queen has put him in much greater danger. Maybe he'll wish he had turned it down.

At least this incident will lose the terrorists at least a few more of their dhimmidiot appeasers.

Islam in it's extreme is more political ideology than religion. In that way, it is only a 'Religion of Peace' in that when Islam rules the planet, there will be no one to be at war with. Where they are given an inch, they demand a mile. Islamic countries are becoming more extreme, extremists rule, they just keep quoting the Koran to justify their Jihad.

what about thisLeviticus 24:16anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.Leviticus 24:15-17 (in Context) Leviticus 24 (Whole Chapter) Numbers 15:30" 'But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the LORD, and that person must be cut off from his people.Numbers 15:29-31 (in Context) Numbers 15 (Whole Chapter) Mark 3:29But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."Mark 3:28-30 (in Context) Mark 3 (Whole Chapter) Luke 12:10And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.Luke 12:9-11 (in Context) Luke 12 (Whole Chapter)

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